"I'd disown him, throw him out penniless on the world, never see him
again."

"You're a Spartan," said her brother in awe, as he looked on that thin,
stern face. "Terry is your theory. If he disappoints you, he'll be simply
a theory gone wrong. You'll cut him out of your life as if he were an
algebraic equation and never think of him again."

"But he's not going wrong, Vance. Because, in ten days, he'll be twenty-
five! And that's what all these changes mean. The moment it grows dark on
the night of his twenty-fifth birthday, I'm going to take him into my
father's room and turn it over to him."

He had listened to her patiently, a little wearied by her unusual flow of
words. Now he came out of his apathy with a jerk. He laid his hand on
Elizabeth's shoulder and turned her so that the light shone full in her
face. Then he studied her.

"What do you mean by that, Elizabeth?"

"Vance," she said steadily, but with a touch of pity in her voice, "I
have waited for a score of years, hoping that you'd settle down and try
to do a man's work either here or somewhere else. You haven't done it.
Yesterday Mr. Cornwall came here to draw up my will. By that will I leave
you an annuity, Vance, that will take care of you in comfort; but I leave
everything else to Terry Colby. That's why I've changed the room. The
moment it grows dark ten days from today, I'm going to take Terry by the
hand and lead him into the room and into the position of my father!"